Intervention
by thewriteday
Summary: It began with something Regina thought she would never do again. Sometimes it takes most unexpected person to save you from yourself. TW: Suicide. Picks up immediately after 3.17, Welcome to Storybrooke. Eventual SQ.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Not sure how many chapters this will be, but I've got part of 2 and 3 written already because this idea kept bugging me. Also partly writing to mark the 300th follower of Be the Change - thanks to everyone for reading! This one is going to be decidedly darker.

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**Intervention – Chapter 1**

Emma blinked at her ringing phone. She couldn't think of one good reason why _she _would be calling. And she wasn't exactly brimming with excitement at the prospect of answering. Not after what happened earlier that day with Henry. She'd nearly had a heart attack when she'd been threatened with a handful of eager flames.

Still, she was grateful the woman had been there in time to stop him from blowing himself up.

"_If she hadn't been there…"_ Emma shook the thought away and leaned against her patrol car, resigning to her fate.

"Hello, Regina."

"Sherriff." The woman took a deep breath as if she were about to launch into something but Emma cut her off before she could begin, unwilling to hear the details about just how much she'd offended her this time.

"Look if this is about today, I'm sorry, but can you understand why I was scared to see you with Henry? We haven't exactly been on the same side. And before you say it, I didn't mean to call you a bad person – I mean I didn't actually say it directly, and yes I know it's more complicated than the black and white, good and bad bullshit but I was terrified and then you –"

"Miss Swan!" Regina's voice shattered her speech. "If you would take a moment to let me speak, I think I have something that will concern you a little more than your own attempts to soothe my ego."

Emma blinked, dumbfounded. "Okay…" She replied slowly, wary of more subterfuge.

"Your mother was just here."

Emma paled. She stood up straight. They'd been keeping her mother safe in the apartment – Gold was supposed to be watching her still, keeping her protected from the very woman on the other end of the line. "Mary Margaret was – _why_? Why did she go to _you_?"

"She asked me to kill her." Regina's tone was flat, nearly disinterested.

"She WHAT?"

"I refused, of course. A lot of good _that_ would do me."

Emma heaved a sigh of relief. "So then what happened? Where is she?"

"Well I did not respond very well to her goading," Regina said.

"Big surprise there," Emma interjected before Regina continued.

"And I may have said a few things, taken her heart out to show her she's corrupted it. Nothing out of the ordinary," Regina said flippantly.

"Jesus Christ, Regina! _Really_?!" Emma's heart picked up a rapid pace again. At this rate, she'd have a heart attack before she could make heads or tails of this royally fucked-up situation.

"Shut UP, Miss Swan! That's not the issue – the _issue _is that she ran from my house, left her car here, and went in the direction of Kidder's Cliff. I think she's planning to do something very, very stupid." Regina finished the rest in a huff.

"She – oh my god. Shit! Shit, shit, shit!" Emma dove into the patrol car and started it with a fumbling, shaking hand. "Where is it? The cliff – how do I get there?"

Regina started listing off directions like she was reading a grocery list but Emma could barely hear the words. She'd never be able to remember the turns and street names.

"Never mind. You're on the way – I'm picking you up and you can _show_ me how to get there."

"Excuse me? I did _not _plan on–"

"Regina! I don't have time to argue with you and I am fucking panicking and I can't believe I'm saying this but _please_ come with me. I need your help and I can't find her alone." Emma blinked tears out of her vision and picked up speed. She was nearly at the mansion now and she needed an answer. "Please." She said again when there was a too-long hesitation.

A loud sigh came through. "Fine."

The line went dead.

The patrol car screeched to a halt at the end of the driveway on Mifflin Street and Regina stepped out of her house, not bothering to lock the door behind her. She padded quickly down the pavement to the car and dropped herself into the passenger's side.

"Go straight and then take the third left."

Emma put her pedal down.

Regina gripped the door handle and glanced over, visibly uncomfortable.

"I understand you're worried, but if you kill us before we get there we'll be of no use to your mother. She walked, Miss Swan. The speed limit is fast enough."

"Like hell it is," Emma muttered but she eased off the gas slightly. There were too many trees and not very much room to maneuver on the narrowing road. "How much of a head start does she have?"

"I called you as soon as I saw her take off." Regina said dryly.

Emma glanced at the woman. Well _that_ was surprising.

"You wanted to kill her. Earlier today. And now you're warning me so I can try and stop her from–" Emma couldn't finish that thought. "Why do you care?"

"Because it would hurt my son." Regina said without hesitation. "Stop the car up here. We'll have to go the rest of the way on foot."

Emma did as she was told and Regina jumped out of the car at the first possible moment, heading down a dirt path that wove through the trees.

"How far?" Emma asked.

"We're almost there."

The trees started to drop off, now only scattered around the path and Emma could see a figure standing at the top of the hill. She took off running.

"Mary Margaret!" She shouted when she was close enough for the woman to hear. Her mother whipped around, her eyes wild and drenched in tears. Her eyeliner was carelessly smudged. Emma stopped a few metres from where Snow was standing, two steps from the edge.

"What are you doing?" Emma said between panicked breaths.

"I have to do this. If I don't I'll just hurt you – I'll hurt everyone." Snow sucked in little gasps of air amidst her sobs.

"No you won't! That's _not_ you! You can come back from this. Please, just come over here," Emma tried. A few hot tears spilled out over her cheeks.

Snow shook her head. "I _saw_ it, Emma. I saw what I did to my heart. I _saw _what I'm going to become."

"You don't have to become anything. Not if you don't want to. We can make it right, _please_."

Snow's eyes drifted to a space behind Emma and her face paled even further. "What is she doing here." Emma glanced back to where Regina was standing stiffly a few feet behind her.

"She told me you were coming here and I didn't know the way so she showed me." Emma spilled the explanation as quick as possible. It was a pointless detail, insignificant at the moment. All that mattered was getting Snow to come away from the edge. Snow just nodded, as if she understood it all.

"Right. So she can keep me alive. Make me suffer. Make _everyone_ keep suffering."

Regina rolled her eyes.

Snow laughed darkly. "What? That _is_ why you're here, isn't it?"

Regina ventured closer, standing beside Emma now. Her hands were in her pockets, looking oddly casual for the situation.

"I'm here because you are no good to anyone dead." Regina said. Emma's mouth fell open, somewhat stupefied by the answer.

"I'm no good to anyone _alive_." Snow said quietly. Her sobs were slowing, her face drying into a stony expression of defeat. "You said it yourself. I'll destroy everyone – I can't let that happen. I _won't_."

"I only said that to scare you, dear. I didn't realize it would make you try something as idiotic as this."

"Regina," Emma hissed. "_Not _helping."

Regina ignored her. "You're not going to destroy everything, Snow. You're not _me_. What you did was… terrible. But _this _is not the answer you think it is."

Snow shook her head, her eyes flickering with something like relief. "Yes it is."

Emma tried to leap forward and restrain her mother, but she was too late – Snow fell backwards over the cliff, wind whipping through her short hair.

But Regina had jumped forward too and was standing right at the ledge, her hands curved downwards towards the beach below, her face stoic. Emma leaned over cliff, tears already falling from what she knew she would see. Her eyes went wide when she realized what was really happening.

Snow's body was still in midair. It had never hit the ground.

Emma turned to look at Regina then back down. Snow was being lifted back up to the edge. Her small features were twisted in confusion; her arms were held tight to her sides. Regina gave one last gentle turn of her wrist and deposited the shaking figure on the firm ground. Emma had Snow in her arms in seconds, holding on so tightly Regina thought Snow might die after all: squeezed to death in the arms of her overzealous daughter.

"You're okay, you're okay," Emma repeated the words like a mantra into the woman's ear, more for herself than for the almost-victim. Snow's arms rose up and wrapped limply around her daughter.

As Regina watched the scene, her features clouded over. She recalled holding her own mother, watching the last light fall out of her eyes, the last breath fall from her lips. Regina had just saved the person who'd wrought her death – and for what?

"_For Henry."_ She reminded herself. The idea didn't comfort her this time.

Emma was still holding Snow, but her eyes flicked up to the woman still standing a few feet away, stiff as a board. Emma caught Regina's eyes and smiled. She mouthed the words "Thank you," and Regina nodded dimly in return.

Emma pulled back from Snow's arms. "We should get out of here. It looks like it's gonna rain."

Snow managed a nod and let Emma guide her to her feet. They headed back to the car in silence, Regina following a safe distance behind, and slipped inside just as the first rain dotted the windshield. Snow was nearly catatonic in the passenger seat. None of them spoke. Regina lost herself in the only sound: the dull thumping of raindrops all over the car. She slipped out as soon as Emma parked, stepping into the downpour without waiting for a goodbye.

Tucked back inside her hollow mansion, Regina stood dripping at the window, watching the patrol car disappear.

She had saved Snow's life for the second time. And for some reason, she couldn't bring herself to feel anything at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **I am kind of stepping blindly with this one at the moment. This chapter will probably need a rewrite. Please leave feedback if you have the time: are the reactions too strange/unbelievable; is it way too OOC on multiple fronts; is it blatantly offensive in terms of how it deals with the subject or is it satisfactory, etc. I feel like at this point I've held it back because I was afraid of what the response would be. But it's been sitting in my drafts collecting dust too long so here goes.

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**Intervention - Chapter 2**

Emma paced the space outside of Snow's bedroom. What was she supposed to say? She had no preparation for this kind of interaction. And she could make absolutely no estimate as to what she was supposed to say or do in a room with her recently-suicidal mother never mind the woman she'd come to know as friend. She could hardly consider what had happened in the last 24 hours, never mind try to conjure the appropriate consolation.

She took a deep sigh and decided to let her gut lead the way. That had been all that led her this far, after all. And _all_ had included quite the hurricane of circumstances.

She knocked lightly at Snow's door.

"Can I come in?" She asked softly, masking the small hope that she would be denied. That she wouldn't have to face what was on the other side of that door.

"Sure," came the reply, not quiet or sad, just _distant_. As if Snow were in another place entirely. Emma supposed she was.

She pushed the door open slowly, afraid to even glimpse what lay on the other side.

Of course it was rather plain to the uneducated eye – only a woman sitting up in her bed, completely still but looking remarkably no worse for wear. Her pale face was expressionless, almost soft. The only betrayal of her composure were the tightly clenched hands resting in her lap. The hands were white with strain and a clear indicator of how tightly wound she was.

Emma stepped in carefully and shut the door behind her, leaning against it.

"How are you?" She asked. The words sounded too feeble. Useless, really.

"Okay." Snow replied and nodded. Her tone was dull. She avoided Emma's eyes, staring down at the quaint, floral bedspread instead.

Emma tried to muster her strength, trying to focus on what she'd do as a friend instead of a frightened, ill-prepared daughter. She sat in the small space allowed on the bed.

After a while of uncomfortable quiet, Emma turned towards the woman, tired of being passive, and pulled Snow into a gentle hug, as if she feared she would break her if she held too tight.

"Is there anything I can do?" Emma asked, hoping to mask the anxious terror in her voice. She leaned back to meet her mother's eyes.

Snow looked at her – the first time since she'd come in – and smiled.

"You really do have my chin."

A smile slipped into Emma's face too.

"Yeah, I guess I do."

Snow's smile faded. In a few seconds there were tears leaping to her eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

Snow's hand reached out to take Emma's, grasping it desperately.

"I just wanted to protect you." Snow's voice was frail, barely audible but painful all the same.

"I know." Emma said. Because she _did _know. She'd had to realize (amidst the chaos of recent events) that her parents had always been trying to keep her safe no matter what, whatever the consequences. That realization had been hard to reconcile with the feelings she'd harboured as a kid – the feeling that she'd been abandoned without question, that she'd been cast aside just because. But being with her parents, knowing that all they'd ever wanted was to raise her themselves: that was starting to bring her around to the idea that she had been _wanted_. That she wasn't just some throw-away.

Those feelings of being abandoned would never quite abate, but at least she felt that she was wanted all along.

Still, the fact was that her parents, for all their years in a nearly changeless state were technically younger than she was. So in the place of people that would purportedly take care of her, were two parents who were just as inexperienced and lost as she was. Maybe _more_ than she was. Seeing the woman that had birthed her in such a tattered state was only another confirmation of that realization.

Emma didn't really know how to take care of people or, for that matter, how to _be_ taken care of. The thought that her parents were just as unequipped to do either should have been somewhat comforting since she would not have to figure it out alone. Instead it was terrifying.

Snow was still sitting with Emma's hand in hers, though she seemed again like she was far away, off in an entirely different plane of existence. Emma waited, sensing that the machinery in her mother's mind was on overload and barely processing what she wanted to articulate.

"If she truly believed I would hurt everyone," Snow began quietly, "then that would include Henry, and she would never let that happen. She would have killed me on her front step." She'd obviously been replaying the day's events just as Emma had, scouring them at different directions, searching for an explanation.

Emma waited for a few moments, willing the woman to continue, but she went quiet again, leaving Emma to try and pick up the trail.

"She showed you your heart, right?" Emma said.

"Yes. And the darkness in it." Snow replied.

Emma was afraid of giving any kind of advice since she was completely aimless in her navigation. She had no idea what to say or what to provide as comfort. So she reached for what was most familiar: her particular brand of tough love. "So don't you think that… indulging in it, staying cooped up instead of doing what you'd normally do, don't you think that will just make it worse?"

"What other alternative is there," Snow said, sounding vaguely interested.

"To be _you_. To live. To be a part of this family. If there's hope for Regina, there's hope for you too."

Snow perked up at that. "You think there's hope for Regina?"

Emma dropped her eyes and fiddled with a loose string on the comforter. She hadn't given any thought about what she'd said; she'd just said it automatically. It seemed plausible enough, didn't it? She'd thought Regina had deserved a chance _before_ Cora had come to town. And she figured the reason she'd been pushed back towards her mother's darkness had been partly the Charmings' fault anyway.

"Well, yeah. It was something the kid said. She was doing so well when we were gone. Sometimes I think the reason she keeps going off is because we provoke her." Emma looked back up hesitantly into her mother's eyes. She added a small side-smile. "Besides, she did kind of save your life."

"Again." Snow added. She squeezed the blonde's hand again and then stayed silent for a few long moments. "You're right." Snow nodded once and stood from the bed, crossing to the closet.

Emma blinked at the sudden movement. It was more than the woman had moved in hours. She was out of the closet in a minute, changed into a fresh set of clothes, running her fingers through her hair to fix it.

"What are you doing?" Emma asked.

Snow stopped in her whir of motion abruptly and she looked at Emma. "I'm going to start dinner – David and Henry should be home soon."

* * *

"I'm sorry. What?" Emma blinked in disbelief.

Snow was still as pale as she'd been at the crest of Kidder's Cliff, her eyes just as wide. But now she wasn't unmoving like she'd been in the car. She was in the kitchen cutting up red and green peppers for the salad she was planning on including with dinner. It was all too casual.

"I just think that, considering everything else, we should keep quiet about the whole thing." Snow replied, keeping her eyes focused on her work, clearly avoiding Emma's scrutiny. "Regina's certainly not going to say anything. No one else needs to know."

"Not even David?!" Emma asked, her voice straining under the effort of keeping a regular volume. She'd been keeping it down to prepare for the return of her father and son who were supposed to be out on a man-to-man talk/bonding session after Henry's attempt to blow up the well.

David had been delegated to look after Henry; Emma had been delegated to take up Snow-watch after Gold left. But then Snow had been too quick to take advantage of the short absence of supervision.

_"Advantage."_ Emma scoffed to herself. That was one awful way to consider it.

Snow did stop her chopping at the mention of her husband's name. Emma's eyes dropped to the tightened fingers around the knife's handle. When she found her mother's eyes again and saw the hurt in them, Emma looked away.

"I don't think I can lie to him." Emma said. "I can put off telling him so you can do it yourself in your own time, but," she looked at the brunette again to make sure she was understood. "If you don't tell him at all, I _will_. He loves you. And he deserves to know."

Emma felt like the villain, giving that ultimatum. But she knew if she had to spend much time with the man, knowing how close he'd come to losing the most vital part of his world, she'd let the truth slip eventually. And besides that, Snow needed his support more than anyone's.

Snow hesitated for a moment, pressing her lips together. After a deep exhale, she nodded. "Okay. That's fair."

Not ten minutes later, Henry's and David's voices filled the building stairwell, announcing their arrival. Snow had assembled the contents of the salad and was just checking on the shepherd's pie when the door swung open.

The sound of Henry's bright laughter made Emma feel simultaneously better and worse. At the very least it brought her a smile she very much needed.

"Hey, kid," she said softly. Her eyes darted to David only momentarily in acknowledgment. "How're you doing?"

"I'm good." Henry said promptly, coming to her side.

"What did you and David do?" Emma asked.

"We went to Emperor Books and Grandpa got me some new comics!" Henry held up a plastic bag filled with his bounty. Emma eyed David with a look of amused disapproval at his parenting tactics. He shrugged and she chuckled. Bribery must have seemed a far more tempting option than whatever "man-to-man" had originally meant in David's mind.

She felt her smile begin to slip as she registered Snow: the woman frozen in her periphery. Emma swallowed hard.

"How about you show me the haul while we wait for dinner?" Emma said as she ruffled her son's hair.

"Okay!" Henry replied before bounding towards his room to dump out the bag for his mother's approval. Emma gave a small smile and followed him, almost ashamed at how eager she was to leave her parents' company.

* * *

Dinner was no more comfortable. Emma could tell by her father's oblivious contentedness that Snow hadn't spoken to him yet. She could understand the reluctance to do so. The fear that it would hurt him, hurt them, or change the way he looked at her. She felt it herself to some degree. But that didn't make it any more bearable. She kept her eyes on her food mostly, throwing a smile Henry's way when she could manage it.

She didn't dare look at David for fear he could already sense her unease.

When dinner was done, she went immediately to work on the dishes and then excused herself from the apartment. She managed some half-baked excuse that she was going out to meet Ruby.

Once she was out in the night air, she gave a sigh of relief, feeling less claustrophobic. Of course she had no _real _plan past this point. She found herself in her car, thinking she might go for a drive. Anything to physically and mentally take her away for a while.

Why she ended up in the driveway of the mayoral mansion, she couldn't say. Nor could she say how or why she lifted herself from the car, walked up the path, and knocked on the ominous, front door.

When Regina opened the door, Emma grasped for the first words she could think of.

"Can I have a drink?"

* * *

Regina shifted uncomfortably in her seat on the couch, pushed as far to the side, as far away from the other woman on the couch, as possible. Emma didn't register the fidgeting. She stared at the rim of her glass of gin. Regina tapped one of her nails on her own glass. She chewed her lip. She watched the blonde sitting more still than she'd ever seen. She took a breath.

"Are you going to tell me why you're here, or are we going to sit in silence some more?" Regina asked, her voice wavering slightly. When Emma showed up at her door, Regina had already been a couple drinks ahead of her. She was struggling slightly with hiding the frayed edges of her composure.

Emma turned her head and blinked in Regina's direction, rising out of her trance. "Would it surprise you if I said I didn't _know_ why?" She said, then followed her words with a large gulp of gin. She grimaced, then immediately took another swig to finish the contents of the glass.

Regina didn't know what to say so she just shook her head. Emma stood and poured more gin into her glass. She turned from the liquor cabinet and looked at Regina. She hadn't really had a good look at the woman either times she'd seen her that day in the day, being so distracted. Now Emma could see that Regina had lost weight – her form looking weaker than she'd ever appeared. There were fine wrinkles around her eyes that Emma could have sworn weren't there before. Her makeup was all but washed away.

"Why did you do it?" Emma asked.

Regina turned wide eyes to her guest and gripped her glass a little tighter. "I don't know." She said.

Emma dropped her gaze and nodded. After a moment more she returned to her spot on the couch, though a little closer to the brunette this time.

"Thank you." She said quietly.

Regina didn't know how to respond. Was she supposed to say you're welcome? She took a large sip of gin from her glass. She swallowed it slowly, heard the sound of the gulp in her own ears and winced a little. She opened her mouth for a moment before she found words to fill it.

"No one else needed to lose a mother this month." There was no venom in her tone, only a note of melancholy.

Emma bit her bottom lip and her head tilted to the side to look at the brunette. It hurt her somehow, to see Regina so frail and cool. There was no fire in her at that moment, only ash.

Emma rested the side of her head in her palm, her elbow propped up on her knees.

"She doesn't want to tell anyone about what happened. She didn't even want to tell David." Emma said.

Regina turned on her, her brow furrowing. Some of the old fire licked back into her voice at the revelation. "Then you're here to make sure I'm going to keep quiet? Because I can assure you, Miss Swan–"

Emma's head fell back against the couch in frustration. "Regina, no. I'm not asking anything from you. You've done enough to help us, believe me. Not to mention I can't picture you tooling around town spreading the news of how you rescued Snow." Emma locked eyes with Regina, hoping she could convey her honesty that way. She let out a shuddering breath. "I just… I can't talk to anyone else about it I guess. Maybe that's why I'm here."

"And what is it you want to _say_ about it?" Regina asked with a harder edge to her voice than she'd intended.

Emma's mouth fell open; her eyes lost focus and then drifted back to the depths of her glass. She swirled it absently. "I. I don't…" She could feel her eyes welling, her hands shaking a little. "How could she do it? How could she try and leave us like that?"

Regina heard the tremor in her voice, the bumbling in her words. The blonde sounded just like Henry did before he cried. Even her expression was the same. Regina's chest tightened as she watched the woman struggle to keep herself rigid.

"She wasn't in the best state of mind. And in her eyes, at that moment, she thought she was doing it _for _you." Regina replied, her tone more gentle.

Apparently it didn't matter how gently she was spoken to; Emma's equilibrium tipped and she broke into painful sobs. Her body shook with the force of them. She hid her face in her free hand.

Regina was frozen in discomfort for a moment. She hadn't seen the blonde so damaged since the day Henry had eaten the turnover.

Regina took a steadying breath, her head still swimming in a daze of gin, and set her glass down on the coffee table. She reached carefully for Emma's glass and took it too, setting it down beside the other. Then she prepared herself for what she felt was the only appropriate course of action.

She wrapped her arms awkwardly around the other woman. At first Emma flinched hard in her arms but after a moment of tenseness, she settled and relaxed, letting herself be held, shaking and sobbing in the embrace. Later, Regina could account the act of comfort to her inebriation, but now she knew it was because as much as it helped Emma to be held, it also felt remarkably soothing to Regina to hold someone, even if that someone was a woman who'd more often been an enemy than an ally.

She missed caring for another person. She hadn't always been good at it with Henry, but she'd tried. And his absence hurt more than his resentment ever did.

It felt good to be able to be there for someone else, to be depended on a little.

After a while, Emma's sobs began to relent. Her breathing evened out and she sank further against Regina's chest. Instinctively, Regina ran one hand over the blonde waves of hair, soothing the head they crowned. Emma sighed at the touch.

"I'm sorry." The Sherriff's voice was a shadow of itself, barely audible.

"Don't be." Regina replied.

Emma pulled back slowly, sitting up straight again and wiping the dripping mascara from her face. Regina reached for a tissue and handed it to the woman, watching her assemble herself again.

"I should go back." Emma said. "In case she–" Emma stopped herself and shook her head. "In case she tells David. I should be there."

"You shouldn't drive." Regina said, glancing at Emma's tumbler.

"I'll walk," Emma said with a small smile.

Regina nodded, flattening the wrinkles in her clothes.

They walked to the front door in silence and Emma yanked on her boots. She opened the door to leave and hesitated, turning back to Regina.

"Thank you. Really."

"Don't mention it, dear." Regina forced a smile. She was speaking again before she realized what she was saying. "If you ever need to talk–"

"Or weep uncontrollably?" Emma said with a chuckle.

Regina smiled wider at that. "Or anything. You know where to find me."

"Would you mind if I brought Henry over tomorrow? For dinner? He misses you." Emma seemed to be speaking faster than her brain could work too, since her expression was as wide-eyed and shocked as Regina's at the proposal.

"That would be lovely. Just the three of us, then?"

"Yeah."

"I'll see what I can whip up." Regina's smile was genuine.

"No turnovers, though." Emma added.

Regina steadied an admonishing glare at her. "Goodnight, Emma."

"Night."

* * *

A/N: Don't hold back. Especially if you have personal experience with the topic. I have a little but probably not enough. Also, if you're interested in being a beta, let me know.


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